Part exhibition, and part working laboratory, a glass-enclosed conservation lab brings you right into a museum conservator’s world. See the tools of the trade and watch as conservators work on a wide array of Egyptian objects including rare paintings, ancient funerary objects, and, of course, mummies! Enjoy this unique opportunity to follow conservators as they protect, restore, and preserve pieces of ancient Egyptian history in this 2,000 square foot exhibition.

Visitors can look in to see a range of artifacts in various stages of conservation, watching as members of the Penn Museum Conservation Department move from studying, preparing, cleaning, mending, or conserving an elegant ancient coffin lid, to working on elaborately wrapped animal mummies and human mummy heads.

In addition to conserving specimens from ancient Egypt, the Artifact Lab exhibition has also expanded to include special projects on occasion. These projects often involve items being prepared for in-house exhibitions or being loaned to other museums. Others focus on material from Penn Museum excavations at Lapithos in present-day Cyprus, and from the Royal Cemetery of Ur in present-day Iraq in work completed in conjunction with the Ur of the Chaldees Project.